Roy P. M. Carlson

Roy P. M. Carlson was a Bank of America executive who orchestrated Bank of America's original investment in BCCI.¹ He later became the head of National Bank of Georgia at the request of Ghaith R. Pharaon.¹

Early Career and BCCI Involvement

Carlson was a key figure in the early relationship between Bank of America and BCCI. He had entertained Agha Hasan Abedi when Abedi came to the United States to negotiate Bank of America's 30-percent share in the new bank in 1972, and the two became friends.² Carlson later left Bank of America in 1975 to become president of Rahim Irvani's Melli Group in Iran.² He was also a partner in former Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard Helms's consulting firm, Safeer.²

Role at National Bank of Georgia

Carlson was appointed head of the National Bank of Georgia by Abedi and Pharaon, who sought to reconfigure the bank along BCCI's lines.² Under Carlson's guidance, the bank's assets quadrupled from $400 million to $1.6 billion. The National Bank of Georgia became a clearinghouse for BCCI funds in the United States, a destination for BCCI letters of credit, and a provider of loans and services to BCCI's international clientele.²

Carlson played a role in the acquisition of Financial General Bankshares, negotiating the purchase for First American Bank.²

National Bank of Georgia and BCCI

According to the Kerry-Brown Senate Report, Carlson, hired as president soon after Pharaon's purchase of the bank was approved, began making trips to London to visit BCCI and entertained Abedi and his wife in Atlanta; he made two BCCI-related trips abroad in 1983, to London and Athens, three in 1984, and three in 1985, together with trips to Miami and Chicago to meet BCCI officials. BCCI's New York manager Abdur Sakhia recalled a meeting in Miami in November 1985, attended by Abedi, Swaleh Naqvi, Clark Clifford, Robert Altman, Carlson and Tariq Jamil, after which Abedi said the bank would be merged with First American. When BCCI acquired the Independence Bank of Encino, it abandoned an original plan to place Carlson on that bank's board of directors as well.³

Carlson told the subcommittee's staff that he, Clifford and Altman met at the Grand Bay Hotel in Miami in February 1986 to discuss the price for the bank. The report found that the statements of Clifford and Altman on the transaction "cannot be reconciled with the documentary and testimonial accounts of the other parties."⁴